Tag Archives: curtain clips

Well, my favorite part of decorating the master bedroom arrived last weekend! And that favorite part would be curtains. Call me crazy, but I think they’re the perfect finishing touch on a room…even if that room isn’t finished. Curtains can cover a multitude of sins, sort of like grace but not quite as good.

In order to be a good blogger and to try to continue to do things on the cheap, we decided to give dropcloth curtains a try. This is all the rage with home decor bloggers these days, as a quick search on Pinterest reveals. And if everybody’s doing it, we definitely needed to give it a try. So we picked up 4 of these “Blue Hawk” brand paint dropcloths from Lowe’s for about $10 each. We went with the 6′ by 9′ variety, though they did come in other sizes.

Now, the one downfall to using dropcloth curtains is that they are pretty stiff and scratchy straight out of the package. You’re not gonna want to rub your face on these right away, so the trick is to wash them once or twice with a bunch of fabric softener.

But then they’ll be all wrinkly, so you’ll probably have to spend several hours ironing these like I did…unless you’re into the wrinkly, unkempt look. But don’t fret. After you burn your fingers six or seven times you get used to it. 🙂

Then comes the fun part–figuring out how best to hang them. We had both of our DIY curtain rods ready to go, so it was just a matter of measuring where to attach the little curtain clippy things.

Oh, and Mom found this great solution that eliminated the need for cutting and sewing. Since the curtains are 9′ tall and the ceilings are definitely NOT, it stands to reason that we’d have to do some heavy duty dropcloth surgery right? Nope–we just folded down the curtains at the top and decided we liked it. I measured and folded them so that the bottom would just graze the floor and the fold at the top would be about 1 inch above the curtain rod.

Then I began the very scientific process of attaching curtain clips. You know the type, right? Usually you clip them to the top of your curtain and they show, but we wanted to do a faux pinch pleat so that the rings wouldn’t be visible and so that our curtains would look a bit fancier.

I tried to use the tape measure for this step, but I think there was something wrong with it because I was just failing miserably at spacing these darn rings (it definitely couldn’t have been a user error). So I ended up basically eyeing it.

To create a fake pinch pleat look, you need to affix the clips about 2.5″ below the top of the curtain so that your rings won’t peek over the top of your curtains. I took a little pinch of the fabric (2 layers, since we folded the top down) and clipped those prongs on at an angle. You can sort of see what I did if you squint real hard at this pic. I did have to call for reinforcements because we chose the strongest clips on the planet and my poor fingers had had enough what with all the ironing and everything. Kenny was happy to help.

Then comes the BEST PART: hanging them and seeing the fruits of your labor. I fussed and fluffed those dropcloths until they hung the way I wanted them to.

I don’t think we could have chosen better fabric if we had tried. The dropcloths are a perfect natural color and are nice and heavy and textured looking, kind of like a really thick linen. They let a little light through, as you can see, but I think they’re a pretty great weight for curtains.

When it comes to hanging curtains, the general consensus is to hang them high and wide. Don’t be afraid to go almost up to the ceiling…and we created the rods to go beyond the size of the window by 18″ on each side. That way, when the curtains are open, it looks like the windows are huge.

As you can see, Mom and Dad might have moved back in to the room already! More on that later. There are a few things to finish up, but it’s definitely liveable and they love it. And no, I can’t stop looking at these pictures of the curtains. Mmmm.

UPDATE: THIS ROOM IS DONE! YIPPEE!!To see what we’ve done so far in this room, go ahead and go all click-crazy. Here, I’ll enable you by creating a nice little (read: long) list. And yeah, I did go a little “Friends”-like on ya here. So be it.

So has anyone else tried using painter’s dropcloths as curtains? It’s a little unorthodox (except in blogland, evidently), but that’s the way we roll around here. And what are your curtain hanging tips and tricks? I’m all ears. After all, this was just practice for when Kenny and I have a house with more than just three north-facing windows (I’m looking at you, apartment).

Have you liked the Planting Sequoias Facebook page? Go now. I made cool graphics and everything.

There are two windows in the master bedroom which means Mom and Dad need two curtain rods…and prices ranged from $30 to $60 for ONE curtain rod at Lowe’s. We racked our brains (and by that I mean we went straight to Google) for ideas and found this tutorial from House of Hepworths and embraced it for ourselves, adapting it a little to suit our purposes.

First, Mom and I went to Hobby Lobby to look at their vast array of drawer knobs. It was fairly glorious, and we had a TON to choose from. Mom ended up picking out 4 that had a little crystal knob and some antique brass details. They were all 50% off and we spent about $16 total.

I found 4 curtain rod holders at a thrift store for $.25 each (they’re meant to hold two curtain rods, but we’ll use them for just one), we found 3 sets of 14 curtain clips at a steal for $3.46 per package, and Mom bought some clearance Rustoleum Antique Brass spray paint for $7.17.

We also grabbed two 10′ pieces of conduit from the electrical aisle at only $1.28 apiece and cut them down to size. I measured each window and had brother John cut the rods to be 3′ longer than that so there would be 18″ on each side of the window. Then we coated everything in spray paint (except for the curtain clips, since those will be hidden and we didn’t want to gunk them up with paint).

Once we had everything spray-painted, we turned things over to Dad (no, those are not my hairy knuckles. Mine are definitely hairier :)). I made a little graphic to show you so hopefully it’s pretty self explanatory.

Here’s one last picture of the finished product.

Finally, let’s do a little cost breakdown to re-emphasize the thriftiness of this little project.

Conduit: $1.28 each;$2.56 for both

Spray Paint: $7.17

Knobs: $4 each; $16 for all

Thingie to attach rod to wall: $.25 each; $1 for all

Wood: $0 (already owned)

Caulk/glue stuff: $0 (already owned)

TOTAL: $26.73 for 2 custom length curtain rods! And we totally could have chosen cheaper knobs and spray paint, but decided to get stuff we loved rather than just liked.

We’re nearing the finish line of my parents’ bedroom, but I still have a few more posts up my sleeve (which I’m sure surprises no one). As for the electrical dilemma alluded to in my last post, Dad figured out how to fix it and they didn’t even have to rewire anything. Hooray for that!

So there you have it. Go forth and be empowered to make those curtain rods! You hereby have no excuse for naked windows, unless you’re into that sort of thing, which is really not an excuse at all but is rather strange. Trust me. Your neighbors will thank you.

And perhaps, perhaps, you might even put a smile on grumpy cat’s face. If cheap curtain rods can’t change his mood, nothing can.

UPDATE: THIS ROOM IS DONE! Click HERE to see it. And if you need curtains, check out the no-sew dropcloth curtains we made for this room HERE!